Top 5 Initiatives to change India

Where urban India is racing against the time, deep inside India, live people- who are silently working to catch up with the new times. And I will not be surprised if these people surprise the world with their unbelievably immense energy, ideas, and work.

Quiet from long time, these people are now rising aggressively with the support of various organizations. Here I am not talking about organizations that are there to support people for the name sake. Here I am talking about bodies that really have made a difference.

Here is a list of initiatives that are changing picture on India and touching lives of the Indians in a big way:

In 2009, ICICI Foundation launched ICICI Fellows, a pioneering ‘youth leadership’ programme that nurtures young talent to create a cadre of socially responsible leaders for India. The programme was founded with the belief that in each and every sector, India needs talented young leaders who have had in-depth exposure to India’s broader realities, who understand the challenges and opportunities presented in diverse environments, and who have the skills and determination to discover and implement innovative ideas in these areas.

Vision

This programme envisions developing social leaders, who would with their knowledge and skills, mobilize people, their thoughts and resources to create a better India

Objectives

To groom committed young leaders by:

Developing their inherent leadership potential

Providing them with a broad exposure to rural India

Imparting the development perspective in order to make them more socially responsive .

This transformative programme focuses on experiential learning involving work on grassroots development projects with rural-based NGOs, interspersed with modules on management training, skill building and leadership development. The entire experience provides Fellows with knowledge, insight and commitment to inclusive growth.

With the mission to promote an efficient and effective giving culture that provides greater opportunities to the poor in India, GiveIndia was Conceived by Venkat Krishnan, an IIM-A graduate in December 1999, GiveIndia is managed by a team of professionals who have earlier worked with various corporates and now have dedicated their careers to making a difference.

GiveIndia is a donation platform that allows you to support a cause of your choice from about 200 NGOs that have been scrutinised for transparency & credibilityYou can choose a cause you want to donate from a list of causes, like: Disabled, Education, Elderly, Employment, Education etc.

Dr.Kiran Bedi and 17 other police officers founded Navjyoti India Foundation in 1987. They joined hands and started a humble effort that has today taken the shape of a 500 member strong organization working for positive change. They started with a flagship program for correction, de-addiction and rehabilitation of the drug addicts to curb crime rate. Soon, the need to adopt an integrated approach was felt and they started to reach out to other left out sections of the society as well.

How do you reach the 700 million people living in rural areas who, though poor, would still add up to a big chunk of change if they only knew about your products? That’s something Satyan Mishra, founder of Drishtee has spent a lot of time thinking about. In Drishtee’s early years, the company focused on connecting government departments to villages. Using small kiosks outfitted with a computer hooked up to an intranet, it allowed rural dwellers to apply for a driver’s license or request a copy of a birth certificate online. As a social enterprise, Drishtee works towards creating an impact in villages by creating an eco-system of micro-enterprises run by entrepreneurs with a specific focus on women.

Drishtee provides a sound kiosk-based platform to deliver services such as Health, Education, Banking, Micro-finance, and livelihood services such as rural BPOs along with opportunities to provide market access and linkages for physical products such as eyeglasses, mobile phones and agricultural products.

Agastya InternationalFoundation is a Bangalore-based education trust that seeks to transform and stimulate the thinking of rural children and teachers.

With the goals like Foster creativity, teamwork and leadership skills in Children, Propagate teacher education, Leverage cost-effective and Support sustainable development through rural communities and ecological regeneration; Agastya is bringing hands-on science education to rural Government schools spread across the southern Indian of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, through the use of outreach programs such as the “Science on Wheels” (Mobile Lab Program) and Mega Science fairs. Agastya’s stated vision is to build a creative India of ‘tinkerers, solution-seekers and creators’ that are ‘humane, anchored and connected’ by inspiring widespread social development, innovation and leadership through education. It is one of the largest mobile science education programs for disadvantaged children and rural teachers in the world.